Photographing Fused Glass

A while ago, someone asked me to share how I photograph my work. Taking pictures of glass can be tricky business. I use a light box setup that is not at all sophisticated but I get some decent results that are adequate for my needs.

I first purchased this small and inexpensive light box that served me well for many years. It came with two small halogen lamps. I added an overhead clamp light. My husband cemented a long stick in a coffee can so I can adjust the height. All of this is set it up on my unused sewing machine cabinet.

Last year, my pieces got too big to fit in the booth, so I created my own. For my current setup, I bought some white fabric that I attached to a trifold project board with clothespins. I sandblasted two pieces of clear glass and set them up on clamps to work as light diffusers. It works fairly well, but I could use something to diffuse the light from above as well. Eventually I may need to build something a bit more stable, but for now it works. I have been thinking about mounting a curtain rod along the wall that I could drape the fabric from. This would make it easier to change the color of the background.

I have found that the key to getting good results is a camera with a manual setting. I have a Cannon Power Shot Elph 130. I use the manual mode and set the white balance and brightness manually. The macro mode on the camera is essential for closeups. The final tweaking is done in a photo editing program called Paint.NET. The program is a free program and does all the things I need it too and a whole lot more that I don’t know anything about. I basically use Paint.NET to rotate, crop, resize, adjust brightness and contrast, add my copyright, and perform some minor touch-ups.